Influence of dietary arginine on sexual dimorphism of arginine metabolism in mice.

We have studied the influence of dietary arginine on tissue arginine content, and arginine metabolism in CD1 mice. Dietary arginine restriction produced by feeding mice with a low arginine diet (0.06%) produced a marked decrease in arginine concentrations in the plasma, skeletal muscle and kidney of female mice (72%, 67% and 54%, respectively) while in male mice the decreases were smaller (58% in blood and 18% in the skeletal muscle).